The Name Should've Been A Clue
by Manchester
Summary: Written for the Ghost of Christmas Pasts (2017) challenge at Twisting the Hellmouth. There's the return of a beloved character, a crossover, and some Buffy teasing. Happy holidays to all!


"Who?" growled Buffy Summers.

She then repeated this word with even more deadly menace in her tone: " _Who?_ "

Unfortunately for the Slayer, this threat of imminent violence was all for naught regarding her friends sharing with Buffy the sitting room in the New Council's Scottish castle headquarters. Indeed, it only caused Dawn, Xander, Willow and Faith to laugh even harder. Giles himself had his eyes crinkling with mirth and this Englishman's lips were twitching as if any second now an actual gleeful smile would blossom there.

* * *

All of them had come in the room after breakfast together on Christmas Day, expecting to open their limited number of presents awaiting these core Scoobies under the abundantly decorated tree in the room's corner. As part of the latest holiday agreement among the castle's residents to avoid going broke buying numerous presents for each other, a computer program written by Willow randomly matched them up by pairs in between both the main group and the rest of the headquarters occupants.

The six people currently surrounded by discarded wrapping paper and empty boxes had gotten one gift for their selected recipient and another present for an unaware New Council member as part of a Secret Santa deal. Similarly, the Sunnydale veterans would each receive a single goody from an anonymous bestower.

At least that was the plan.

The first person into the room happened to be Giles, who stopped short so unexpectedly that a following Buffy almost walked right into him. About to ask what was going on, Buffy let her mouth fall open in astonishment at seeing a huge stack of presents reaching nearly to the ceiling next to the Christmas tree.

The rest of the gang crowding in also stood there in surprise. This was soon broken by Xander cheerfully saying, "Aw, gang, you shouldn't have!"

Dawn sent a suspicious glance Xander's way.

"Why do you think they're all for _you?_ " she finished with a derisive wave of her hand at the presents.

"Because I've been a very good boy this year!" declared Xander, puffing himself up with mock pride.

Smirking, Faith reached out to give Xander's butt a possessive squeeze. "Yeah, lotsa times. His tongue work's gotten way better, too."

Giles winced slightly at this uncouth reminder of the current relationship between those New Council troubleshooters, who had over the years since Sunnydale had saved each other's lives many times during their travels throughout the world fighting against supernatural foes. The Englishman took a quick step toward the pile of presents in order to avoid having to listen to any more sexual badinage between the younger generation much too early in the morning.

Removing with some care a present from the side of the mound of wrapped boxes lest it topple everywhere, Giles peered at the small card taped onto the outer side of the gift, reading the name printed there.

"This is for you, Buffy," he announced, handing it to his Slayer now at Giles' side.

A happy giggle from Buffy over getting the first very prezzy was interrupted by Willow also picking out another present from the pile and saying the same thing. "Buffy, too."

The Red Witch placed her offering onto the gift Buffy was already holding. Curious, Dawn, Faith, and Xander approached the pile and started checking through there.

"Buffy."

"Buffy, yo."

"Annnnnd…we got Buffy."

After saying that and adding the present he'd removed to the armful of boxes that startled Slayer now held, Xander mentioned thoughtfully, "I'm sensing a theme here, people."

The rest of the Scoobies stared with growing puzzlement at where Buffy was experimentally shaking the stack of presents balanced on both hands. She told her friends, "They're not all that heavy, and I don't hear anything rattle."

"Well, open them!" impatiently urged Dawn.

"I didn't see anything on the card about who it was from, did you?" she asked in an aside to the others.

Various headshakes were done. They then watched Buffy casually let the stack fall to the floor, keeping it still balanced vertically.

Lifting off the top present from the half-dozen already collected, this Slayer easily ripped off the red-and-green paper and opened the plain cardboard box revealed there. Buffy's face brightened at seeing cloth of some kind under a protective white tissue, which was only natural since the box was a quite familiar type of those shirt boxes used to hold women's blouses and other light clothing.

Sure enough, it turned out to be a nice example of a little black tank top, just the thing for gym exercising. Buffy smugly held this up by the shoulder straps, displaying it to the others—

Who'd just burst out in raucous guffaws, even from Giles!

As Buffy stared in bewilderment at her Watcher, he managed to state over both his and the others' merriment, "Oh, yes, that quote is most fitting!"

Buffy looked down at the tank top she was still holding, only to note this was seen from the back. Was there something on the front to explain the guys' weird behavior?

Twisting the tank top around, the Slayer read what was printed on the cloth fabric—

"HEY!"

Glaring at all the jerks there for acting so rudely now, what with them still sniggering, Buffy indignantly dropped the tank top with its offensive message onto the stack of other unopened shirt boxes.

Which one and all resembled the rest of that big pile of anonymous presents over there by the Christmas tree.

A sudden horrible suspicion began to unfold itself in Buffy's mind…

Of course, it had to be Faith who expressed what the others were thinking too: "Ya don't suppose— Hell, yeah!"

The other Slayer stalked over to the pile, grabbing the first handy present there, no matter what the card might say. A quick rip of her fingers opened up the box to reveal a stylish pale blue sweatshirt…with the exact same impertinent quotation also embossed onto the garment's front.

Grinning like loons, the rest of the Scoobies save for a sulking Buffy descended upon the pile. Sounds of tearing paper and crinkling tissue soon swept throughout the sitting room, with the end result being a close resemblance to an explosion in a seriously upmarket women's apparel shop. Scattered throughout the room where they'd been tossed onto the furniture and floor were well over a month's consecutive wear of expensive female upper body outfits.

Tees, blouses, hoodies, sweaters, sleepwear…the list went on and on. Also diverse were the many inscribed and engraved designs of that exact literary excerpt which perfectly matched Buffy's current savage mood.

* * *

When it was finally over with – the very last unsigned present opened – Buffy once more demanded of the Scoobies, "All right, which one of you idiots thought this was so funny?!"

"C'mon, B, it's a damn good gag, but do ya really think any of us woulda gone to all this trouble?" Faith pointed out. She went on with a nod of her head at the nearest pricey cashmere pullover with the quotation knitted with silvery thread into the wool.

"'Sides, yer talkin' serious bucks here. Alla this, it's gotta be at least a coupla grand in total so that lets out me an' the rest here. Nope, haveta hand it to whoever pulled this off, but it wasn't me."

Buffy glowered at Faith, and then switched this supremely dirty look at where the others were nodding in amused agreement.

"Fine!" she gritted. Whirling around to stomp toward the sitting room door, Buffy irately tossed over her shoulder, "I'm still gonna hunt down who did this and make them pay!"

That instantly made Xander break out in song, "'Tis the season to be jolly, fa la la—"

 _BANG!_ slammed shut the door after Buffy's abrupt departure, interrupting in full flow the New Council troubleshooter's sarcastic caroling.

With a sardonic smile lurking on his lips, Xander turned to the others there. "Okay, time to 'fess up. I know I didn't do it, but kudos to whichever one of you who's responsible for that great Christmas prank."

However, this produced another unanimous round of headshakes around the room, quite surprising Xander and the remainder of the room's occupants.

"Huh," Dawn pensively declared. "So, my big sis is going to spend the rest of the day terrorizing the whole castle to get to the bottom of this. All I can say is…MERRY CHRISTMAS!"

The former Key gave her family joyous hugs which were returned in kind, even if Willow seemed a little distracted in Dawn's embrace. This witch was eyeing with some perplexity an empty part of the room's far wall, only to be tugged along by Dawn insisting, "You open mine first, Wils!"

"Sure, Dawnie."

Willow allowed herself to be dragged to the tree where the other Scooby Gang presents were awaiting. She still cast back a rather bemused stare at the innocent-seeming area back there. Ultimately, Willow shrugged and forgot about this to instead take enjoyment at being with her loved ones on Christmas Day, even with the whole Jewish/Wiccan thing.

* * *

Now several miles away riding the electromagnetic spectrum in her hurried escape, the consciousness which once had been Janna Kalderash thought with worried relief, *That was close.*

She'd know it was risky, but nobody could possibly pass up seeing first-hand the end result of their little practical joke against Buffy Summers. It'd been just as entertaining as she'd hoped, except the last part when Willow might've sensed an invisible spectator with that witch's vast magical powers.

*Well, things will be a lot different on my next visit,* not-Janna mentally chuckled.

Arriving at the hidden dell in the nearby Scottish hills bedecked with snow, the consciousness merged with the metallic form sitting upon a handy boulder in the clearing. Running a quick diagnostic scan, Janna observed with satisfaction she was at 100% functionality.

Abruptly coming to life, the robot built in the shape of a young human female well over six feet tall stood up from the rock.

* * *

What, you thought a technopagan wouldn't be totally fascinated by the fact that the Internet was capable of containing within itself a demon which then started taking over cyberspace?

When that newest Boca del Infierno episode had ended — Moloch destroyed and apparently no trace of him left in virtual reality — the woman going under the cover name of Jenny Calendar took into her safekeeping the various remnants of what programs and codes an embarrassed Willow provided during the girl's uncomfortable acknowledgment that some dangerous things were best left alone for those able to securely deal with them.

In between her job as the computer teacher at Sunnydale High and other, more secretive, parts of this lady's life, Jenny carefully studied how Moloch had gone from a medieval demon to an Internet avatar. It was quite intriguing, and eventually Jenny began to have an inkling how it might be possible to magically duplicate that event for herself. Not that she actually planned for it to happen anytime soon…or even at all, considering how absolutely hazardous beyond belief this attempt would be for whoever took that gamble.

Getting chased through the corridors of a California high school one night by a vampire renowned for his sadism would definitely change somebody's mind about the above. In between her desperate but eventually futile efforts to run away from Angelus, Jenny set up a frantic spell on the fly for a last-ditch plan. However, there was an immense stumbling block to prevent the likely success of this ad-hoc arrangement.

She needed some source of mystical power to move her awareness on-line. Of course, there was the Hellmouth itself under the school library, but Jenny would rather be eaten alive by Angelus than even try that. So, it was ironic that at the very final moment, Jenny used her own death from a fanged fiend breaking her neck as a magical sacrifice to unhesitantly take a leap into the dark unknown.

For Jenny/Janna, it was a tremendous shock for what seemed to be a mere moment later, she was downloaded into an artificial brain.

To be fair, the aged scientist working on a further prototype of their android invention received an equally stunning surprise that somehow a strange adult woman's personality had wound up in this robot's head. It didn't take long, though, to have a kindly technological genius to throw themselves eagerly into studying and assisting that younger lady, for which Jenny was absolutely grateful.

Some other parts of her new life weren't as easily integrated by Jenny. For one, it was now past a whole _decade_ since her death! Neither of them — the scientist and the robot — could think of where Jenny had been during that entire time, but the simplest answer was this murdered woman had just existed unaware somewhere in cyberspace until she'd been accidentally transferred into her new inorganic mind.

Another big revelation had been Sunnydale's mystifying collapse several years after Jenny's demise. Thankfully, some of the individuals she'd known then had survived: Rupert Giles, Buffy Summers, Willow Rosenberg, and Xander Harris. As a matter of fact, they were now the New Council, taking over from the previous supernatural organization called the Council who'd been in charge of the mystical warrior girl known as the Slayer. Just as startling to Jenny was the news that there were now far more than a single Slayer; instead, at least hundreds and maybe thousands of Slayers were currently part of the New Council.

Things had obviously changed from when a bunch of high schoolers calling themselves the Scooby Gang ran around town after dark fighting hostile demons while also dealing with a truly excessive amount of teenage angst among each other.

One particular event also since then had Jenny spitefully rejoicing, how Angel the vampire was rumored to have disappeared while fighting a dragon in Los Angeles. So what if Angel and Angelus were two different personalities? For all Jenny cared, both could damn well be fertilizing some LA freeway landscaping as a couple hundred pounds of dragon shit.

All this latest information was gained by Jenny using her technopagan skills updated for her new form. She could definitely search through the Internet by will alone, bypassing any potential firewalls and other defensive measures to rummage through computers worldwide. Adding, altering, and deleting files were just as easy. Even better, her consciousness could separate from the robot body for short periods, sending that machine into dormancy while Jenny's ghostly astral form visited places which might not react very well to 600 pounds of animated titanium steel showing up without advance notice.

Particularly when that same robot intended for world-saving/crime-fighting was bristling with complex tools and weaponry built into the scientist's invention. Jenny had to spend weeks learning how to expertly use everything, helped by the robot's creator every step of the way.

During this acquiring of new skills, Jenny and the scientist became very fond of each other. So much that the scientist offered to properly adopt Jenny as a real daughter, who was thrilled to accept while taking on a new last name. In the course of this, Jenny also renounced for once and all her former Janna Kalderash existence, feeling good riddance to bad rubbish. The way she figured, getting killed carrying out a gypsy clan's overdone vengeance upon some brooding vampire pretty much wiped out any owed familial obligations between herself and the rest of the Kalderashes.

And that was where she soon found herself in the Highlands clearing in the middle of winter. It was now time for a sentient robot with serious combat talents and technologies to enlist with the New Council in their never-ending battle with supernatural monsters. If that organization had any sense at all, they'd jump at the chance.

Mind you, there was always the possibility of the Scoobies considering this was some kind of weird scheme by one of their many demonic enemies to have a fake long-dead friend claiming to have come back to life as a big, shiny, talking hood ornament.

That was partly why Jenny had earlier swiped a drug cartel's funds down to the last Cayman Islands bank account. In between electronically donating the dirty money to established charities worldwide, she kept a little for herself to have some fun. Plus, it'd make several people formerly from Sunnydale stop and think twice before acting in haste.

Impishly glancing down at the only article of clothing covering her metallic body, a t-shirt straining at the seams, Jenny Wakeman then blasted off from the ground with her boot jets.

On Jenny's way to give the Scoobies their best Christmas present ever, the rush of wind in her speedy travel across the skies towards the New Council castle pressed this t-shirt against titanium skin so that the message there was clearly legible, taken from William Shakespeare's _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ :

THOUGH SHE BE BUT LITTLE, SHE IS FIERCE

* * *

Author's Note: The full quotation is from Act 3, Scene 2 of the W.S. play.

Helena:

Oh, when she's angry, she is keen and shrewd!  
She was a vixen when she went to school.  
And though she be but little, she is fierce.

Hermia:

"Little" again? Nothing but "low" and "little"!  
Why will you suffer her to flout me thus?

Disclaimer: All intellectual rights for _My Life as a Teenage Robot,_ including such characters like XJ-9 referred to as "Jenny" by the robotics expert Nora Wakeman, are the property of their lawful owners.


End file.
